Author 



If * 




Title 



^f *« s 



Class 



EfiSA 



Imprint. 



Book .:./ 



16 — 47372-1 GPO 



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"-^^^^ ^^ 



THE G1,0RY OF ()01), THE DEFENSE OF THE SOIiTH. 



A DISCOURSE 



I)KI-IVKUi:i> IN riiK 



Ifthotltst J|}isno|)aI mxx^y, Mouth, 



YORKVILLE. S. C. JULY 28, lS(il, 



DAY OF XATEONAJ. TIIANJvSGTVING. 



VICTORY AT MANASSAS. 



REV. JOHN T. WIGITTMAN 



TK DEUM LAUDAMI'S. 




PORTLAND, ME.: 

PRINTED BY B. THUllSTON X COMPANY, 

1 S 7 1 . 



Single 'copies hy vvail, J^.'T cents; five copies, $1.00. 







mA 



^B- 



THE GLOEY OF GOB, THE DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 



A DISCOURSE 



DBLIVERED IN THB 



\iihM ^^^^^'i i^jm\[t\\, Suuth, 



YORKVILLE, S. C, JULY 28, 1861, 



DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVINa 



VICTORY AT MANASSAS. 



REV. JOHN T. WIGHTMAN 



TB DEUM LAUDAMUS. 



PORTLAN^D, ME.: 

PRINTED BY B. THURSTON & COMPANY, 

1871. 




^ 



A 



'YORKViLLE, S. C, July 29th, 1861. 

Rev. John T. Wightman : 
DEak Sir, — The undersigned were appointed a committee, in behalf o^ a large number of 

the congregation who heard your sermon last Sabbath, at this place, delivered in pursuance, to 

the resolution of the Congress of the Confederate States, inviting our people to offer united 

thanksgiving and jsraise to the Most High for the glorious victory \vith which he crowned our 

arms at Manassas, to request of you a copy for publication. 
The undersigned take great pleasure in discharging this duty, and in making known to you 

the high appteciation in which your effort was held, and in joining their personal solicitation 

in requesting a copy at your earliest convenience. 

W. J. CLAWSON, 
P. B. DARWIN, 
W. H. McCORKLE, 
J. BOLTON SMITH, • 
JAMES JEFFERYS. 



LiNCOLNViLLB, N. C, August 3d, 1861. 
To Messrs. W. J. Clawson, P. B. Darwin, and others : 

Gento;men, — Your courteous communication, requesting the publication of the discourse 
delivered the Sabbath appointed for national thanksgiving, was received. It would be impos- 
sible to reproduce the phraseology, as it was delivered without a written line, yet I will en- 
deavor to follow the track of the argument, and with cheerful reluctance yield to your bett«r 
judgment by laying it as an humble tribute on the altar of our native land. 

Very respectfully, 

JOHN T. WIGHTMAN. 



■^' -'-'" ■ • ^ - 



v5 







lorn of md, {\\t jjcfcnsc of He $ouiIi. 



•* And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assem- 
blies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the 
glory shall be a defense." — Isa. iv. 5. 

The office of a Christian minister is to preacli repentance. Yet 
he has dif ine warrant in overshadowing the nation with the " bur- 
den of prophecy." Even He who came to redeem, paused on his 
mission to shed patriotic tears over Jerusalem. Tlie ambassador of 
tlie Prince of Peace should not needlessly rush into the storm of 
battle, or into the angry debates of the forum,' yet he should studi- 
ously point the eye of the nation to the cloudy pillar of Providence 
distilling blessings on " the dwelling-places of Mount Zion," and 
leading the host to " triumph gloriously." 

Happy are we in possessing rulers who fear God. One month 
since, the nation was invoked to gird itself in sackcloth and to offer 
sacrifice to Almighty God. To-day, in answer to that prayer, from 
the banks of the Potomac to the waters of the Gulf, the atmos- 
phere is thick with the incense of praise. " Happy is that people 
whose God is the Lord. 

A recognition of the hand of God is a nation's defense. Blind 
infidelity ^es nations, as fragments of a dismembered^ globe, dis- 
tractedly drifting through history, without common design in their 
successive periods of being, or in the objects of their mission. But 
Christianity discovers them, as the tribes of Israel, each performing 
a distinct office, yet the whole, guided by the light of a common Prov- 
idence, marching toward universal civilization. " God hath made of 
one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and 



hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their 
habitations." Nations belong to time, not to eternity, " where there 
is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barba- 
rian, Scythian, bond nor free : but Christ is all, and in all." We 
must, therefore, search the history of present events for the place 
and mission of the South. Could we discover these, could we in 
our wanderings and our wars folloAv the pillar and the cloud, the 
glory of God would be a defense. 

The race of man, like the river of Eden, " parted, and became 
into four heads." The first was the Hebrew ; " unto them were 
committed the oracles of God," and they became " the schoolmas- 
ter to bring us to Christ." The germ of religion was lodged in the 
heart of the Hebrew. But there it was locked up in an unknown 
language. If, therefore, its laws be promulgated and its Messianic 
prophecies kindle hope among nations, they must be transferred to 
a universal tongue. Two hundred years before the Advent, Alex- 
ander, by his conquests, took up the meshes of the net of Greek 
civilization and spread them from the borders of the Mediterranean 
to the banks of the Ganges, giving universal language and litera- 
ture to the East. This produced the Greek Scriptures, which an- 
nounced Messiah in the most nervous and elegant tongue of the 
globe. But the Cross was erected at the confluence of three civil- 
izations. The superscription was written in Greek, and Latin, and 
Hebrew. Fifty years before the Advent, the victories of Caesar 
gathered the nations of the East under the wings of the Roman 
eagle. That eagle " seized on Africa at the point of Carthage, and 
Greece at the Isthmus of Corinth, and turned his eye still further 
toward the sun." Pompey passed into Judea over the same ford 
Joshua crossed, and from that hour it became a Roman province. He 
swept the Mediterranean of pirates and opened commerce between 
every town on its margin. These conquests, by giving civil organ- 
ization to the dismembered continent, and by spreading over it the 
aegis of Roman authority, introduced and protected Christianity. 
Paul exclaimed, " I am a Roman ; " it was a gateway through dun- 
geons, and a passport to the pillars of Hercules. 



But Christianity was not yet equipped for its mission. The tardy 
inachinery of the old world was too cumbersome to cross the heart 
of a great desert, or to fly over oceans lying beyond the sun. Thus, 
the Germanic, the last great race, sprang into being not only with 
the religion, and the literature, and the organization of former 
races, but with nerves of fire, and sinews of steel, and a great heart 
to throw tli£se energies across the globe. The hand of Providence 
placed under the control of this race the compass, the press, steam, 
machinery, and agricultural resources in successive periods of time 
best calculated to spread Christianity. If the Hebrew be the re- 
ligious heart, the Greek the intellectual head, the Roman the all- 
conquering arm, then the Germanic race is the feet of humanity — 
the restless, winged feet, carrying the ark through a desert world 
to illumine man's pathway to IMount Zion above. "How beauti- 
ful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things." Eze- 
kiel, in his vision of the " four living creatures " that moved the 
complex "wheels" of Providence, on which rested the "sapphire 
throne " with its "bow of brightness round about," seems to sym- 
bolize in the " man," the " lion," the " ox," and the " eagle," the 
attributes of four great races mystically united in carrying forward 
Messiah's chariot, whose track was to lay the path-svay of truth 
clear as crystal, and whose flight was to spread a rainbow over the 
gloom of the world. 

From this general survey fix your eye on one spot, the belt of 
cotton States, and inquire what position they occupy in the inter- 
play of the wheels of Providence ? As a family of the Germanic 
race, they have a mission in common with the other branches, each 
in its own sphere. Germany, England, and the North move each in 
an independent, and in a common circle of labor ? What, then, is 
ours ? Is the South to play a subordinate part to one of these pow- 
ers ? or does she possess independent attributes qualifying her for 
an independent office ? Here are inexhaustible agricultural treas- 
ures which the world demands, and which are deposited in no other 
spot from pole to pole. True, it were a benign office to be the com- 
missariat of mankind ; true, on the temporary suspension of these 



supplies, processions of mothers and children stagger through the 
streets of New York howHng for bread ; true, ships are rotting in 
the sea-gates of commerce, and milHons of operatives in Europe are 
clamoring for work, with hungry graves before their eyes more 
clamorous to receive them ; true, the splendid capitol of the United 
States already begins to fulfill the prophecy : " the cormorant and 
the bittern shall possess it ; the owl also, and the raven shall dwell 
In it ; and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion and the 
stones of emptiness ; " true, the crown heads of civihzation are in 
dismay, the foundations of two hemispheres shake with the death 
throes of commerce, and ancient cities stand aghast at the prospect- 
ive picture of a naked and hungry winter ; yet I rise to a sublime 
aspect of our position. What are the civil and the moral influences 
created by five hundred millions of capital, annually produced and 
kept in circulation by cotton alone ? What other people throws in- 
to the channels of trade, for the benefit of mankind, so large a con- 
tribution? Here is the chief source of commerce, which carries 
along with it civilization and Christianity, adorning nations with 
splendid cities and giving growth to institutions of letters and of re- 
ligion. Our labor interpenetrates the heart of civilization. " Cot- 
ton is king." It balances the powers of nations and adjusts liberty 
with sovereignty. No elective government can cohere without it 
(or an equivalent), .because it keeps power in the hands of the till- 
ers of the soil and preserves the purity of the ballot-box. The 
workmen of the North are driftins; into agrarian licentiousness, and 
their rules are forced, as a check, into centralizing despotism. 
There is no reserve power in the hands of conservative masses to 
check and balance these extremes. Tariff and taxation are becom- 
ing the strength of government rather than the products of in- 
dustry and the morals of the people. In this the South is superior. 
Her agriculture has sliaped her policy of government and consti- 
tuted the States not the fractions of a unit, but the units of an inte- 
gral. This adjustment of power happily allies the liberty of the 
people witli the strength of government. 

The cotton States occupy a position still more commanding. 



^ 



Across them runs the breakwater to Papal and Pagan aggression. 
The trade-ship, freighted with their weahh, becomes a winged sanc- 
tuary carrying Bibles and missionaries to every land ; the manufac- 
tory, propelled by their profits, weaves the web of the social fabric ; 
and the cylinder of the press, turned by their springs of industry, 
throws off churches, and colleges, and colossal intellects. The cot- 
ton trade keeps the Bible and the press under the control of Protes- 
tantism. 

Discovery and conquest, language and literature, have added do- 
mains to the kingdom of Christ, but the fields of the South have 
built the bulwarks of Zion, equipped missionaries, evangelized Afri- 
ca, touched a thousand springs of benevolence, and gathered within 
the bosom of the church inexhaustible reservoirs of wealth and 
power. Blight the South, and Christianity falls paralyzed on her 
altars. Enrapturing visions break on the gaze of the prophet, and 
strangely does he connect the triumphs of the gospel with the 
products of the soil. " The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the 
rose. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of 
the deaf shall be unstopped. The parched ground shall become a 
pool ; in the habitation of dragons shall be gi-ass with reeds and 
rushes ; and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion 
with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." If the prophecy 
be symbolical, yet it applies with the wonderful fitness of truth to 
the redemption of our " wilderness," " desert " islands and river 
swamps, to our rice deltas covered like a " pool," to our meadows 
of " grass " and our fields of " reed "-like cotton. The South lays 
her " first fruits " on the altar of Christianity, and her institution is 
" the garden of the Lord." 

I These elements of power were not accumulated by fraud or strat- 
agem in trade, policy in congress, or even by the device, or wis- 

] dom, or prowess of her sons. They are the gifts of God. The 
pillar of cloud dropped fertilizing dew on our soil, and the pillar of 

I fire brought across the ocean the only tillers who could survive pes- 
tilence, and wring from the sod the blooms of silver and harvests of 
gold. God blessed our land, and gave to Ham the privilege of mit- 



igating his " curse " by spreading Christianity with the labor of his 
hands. Simon of Cyrene bore the cross of Jesus. 

If this be our mission, " the glory of God shall be a defense.'" 
No invader shall wrench from Christianity her happy laborers, no 
tread of armies turn into dust and ashes the " bloom of the wilder- 
ness " and the turrets of Zion, without breaking the scheme of uni- 
versal Providence, and wounding that Almighty Hand, the shield 
of our happy people. 

But the links of Providence are cycle within cycle, events mov- 
ing events. In searching for traces of the finger of God, the stu- 
dent will often discover in a single event the germ of a nation's his- 
tory and a hint of the eternal mind. Like the geologist who gathers 
a pebble on the sea-shore, and from its wave-cut hieroglyphics deci- 
phers the great laws at play in the bosom of the mighty deep, so 
the student of Providence may trace a single touch of the finger of 
God in the history of a nation back to the one all-pervading mind. 
In discovering this in the dramatic movements of present history, 
we assume an axiom, Providence never violates law. If natural law 
be broken, God governs the world by miracle, — if moral, by sin. 
In vain do we attempt to discover the guidance and defense of 
Heaven in the abrogation of immutable principles. 

The eminence of the South is the result of her domestic slavery, 
the feature which gives character to her history, and which mar- 
shals the mighty events now at work for her defense and perpetu- 
ity. Following the guidance of Providence she was led to the lively 
oracles, whence she received her laws and institutions from the 
hand of God. Her constitution received the finishing touch of 
Christian statesmen, and reflects the accumulated wisdom of ages. 
It was not extempore. It was the slow crystallization of truth, jus- 
tice, and benevolence into a massive bulwark for the defense of 
Christian libei'ty. Her peculiar institution has for its warrant the 
examj^le of patriarchs and prophets, the decalogue and institution 
of Moses, the approval of apostles, and, above all, the sanction and 
smile of the Son of God. In the sixth chapter of Ephesians, Paul 
declares it to be according to the " will of God," " servants be obe- 



9 

dient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh ; as the 
servants of Christ, doing the mil of Grod from the heart." Here 
is the defense of the South, " the will of God." Her government 
is built on the Bible. Let Pharaoh descend with chariots of Egypt, 
the guiding pillar will become darkness and terror to our foes, but 
a pathway of glory to Israel. Under the overshadowing wings of 
its providence, our people have gathered with miraculous unanimity 
to lay the foundation of government, and our broad land of sea- 
coast and rice deltas and mountain coves, teeming with millions of 
happy slaves, sleeps in unbroken tranquillity amid the shout of can- 
non and the tread of advancing legions. God is here. Bayonets 
do not legislate for us, nor standing armies crush with the weight 
of cannon the uprising of disloyal masses. The pillar of fire is po- 
lice and pilot. While government and religion are disintegrating 
at the North, deeper principles arc penetrating the heart of the 
South, solidifying laws, developing resources, stretching out new 
lines of commerce, and throwmg around the land a girdle of man- 
ufactories, colleges, and churches. Neither banks, nor merchants, 
nor planters are failing, but our heaven-planted land " of wheat, 
and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates," waves from 
the Rio Grande to the Potomac with better harvests than of gold, 
and the clouds are dropping new title-deeds to cities more splendid 
than crowned Achaia's brow, and to plains more ample and fertile 
than Palestina's vales. 

Nor are these splendid prizes to become the spoil of the North 
either by conquest or compromise. Two nations struggled together 
in the womb, and now the hand of God has severed every cord, — 
civil, social, and religious, — and is converting the South into a 
financial and national scourge to an infidel, avaricious, and blood- 
thirsty North. Our statesmen have devised a scheme to lay 
tribute on the world to support the war, and to establish an inde- 
pendent government. Our granaries and Avarehouses are under 
the key of a policy which will make our enemies lick the dust, and 
the sun and moon of Europe do obeisance to the evening star 



10 

emerging from the smoke of battle with a brilliancy that casts the 
radiance of hope over the whole horizon of Christianity. 

If there be a heart not made of stone, if there be an eye not 
seared with infidelity, that eye must see the hand of God in the 
confluence of events, and that heart must swell with exultation at 
the smile of Providence, coA^ering like a cloud the dwelling-places 
of our people, and leading the South along the pathway to the 
highest culmination of Christian civilization. 

But we approach the cause more directly appropriate for this day 
of national thanksgiving. No work of God, no reformation can be 
accomplished without resistance, revolution, and blood. If we turn 
to Moses, Luther, or Washington, we see that hardened supersti- 
tions, obdurate vices, and oppressive tyranny only could be revo- 
lutionized by the blood of martyrs. Even he who won our liberty 
on the cross died in the achievement. It were, therefore, vain to 
hope that deluded men, inflamed by ambition or a thirst for spoils, 
would permit the South peaceably to assume her sovereignty, and 
to gather within her bosom the products of her labors. In vain did 
she hold out the olive-branch, in vain offer compromise, in vain 
delay, entreat, almost kneel down at the feet of the Republican 
President, still a policy was inaugurated to plunder her revenue 
by tariff virtually without representation ; her sovereignty was de- 
nied, her valor ridiculed, her religion spit upon, and this was made 
legal by almost every Northern commonwealth abrogating the 
constitution, and by installing into the chief magistracy a blind and 
infatuated power that in madness rends the pillars of democratic 
liberty, invades the Soutli, confiscates her property, blockades her 
ports, burns her cities, insults her daughters by a mercenary and 
brutal soldiery, and threatens to subjugate, enslave, and annihilate 
her sons. Well might the South spring to arms, indignant that the 
foot of a tyrant should be put on her neck. Her cause is holy. 
She has not thrown herself into the bloody arena for conquest or 
ambition. No ; not a cent of revenue, not an inch of soil does she 
covet ; but, with a conviction that her inherent rights are invaded, 



11 

she animates her sons with the war-cry of Nehemiah to oppressed 
Israel : " Remember the Lord which is great and terrible, and 
fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives 
and your houses." Think you, " the God of Gideon, and of Barak, 
and of Samson, and of Jephtha^ of David also," will permit an 
alien foot to burn up the fields that clothe Christianity for the 
skies ? Think you, the angel in the cloudy pillar, who scatters the 
corn of heaven over our tents and vales, will allow the vermin and 
reptile that crawl from the dens and dungeons of the North to eat 
up holy bread sent to nourisli the bearers of the ark ? Think you, 
any alliance of armies and navies could annihilate the chief agents 
of Christianity, the press and steam ; how, then, cut the sinews of 
slavery that give life and energy to these agents? Think you, a 
just God will allow Northern swords to cut up and despoil the 
South, blot out her liberty, paralyze civilization, annihilate inalien- 
able rights, and blast the plans of Providence issuing in the univer- 
sal triumphs of Christianity ? What would be gained thereby ? 
Could the South accomplish her mission shorn" of her strength by 
union with the North, or crushed beneath a military despotism ? 
She must triumph, and become independent. God will defend his 
providence, vindicate his decrees, and blast every attempt to 
abolish the institutions of the South that create harmonious inter- 
play" and dependence among nations, and equip Christianity for her 
celestial mission. His eye leveled the cannon that reduced Fort 
Sumter and asserted her independence. And when the invader 
with hooting and somersets came to Bethel, exclaiming, " we will 
throw down our rifle and meet them with corn-stalks," the angel 
in the cloud looked in the face of the foe and a thousand lay dead 
on the field. The " grand army " advanced to Manassas, with 
bugle and banner and banquet, moving before it walls of iron and 
forests of bayonets ; chivalric knights, and cautious congressmen, 
and gallant blades, and gay women throngeJ from the capital,, 
dancing with merry wine to grace the triumph. Onward it rolled 
in the pomp and circumstance of war, with cannon and carriages 
and handcuffs labeled " for Richmond." At Sabbath sunrise. 



12 

flushed with anticipated victory and bloated with lust, solid col- 
umns pusli forward, flanked by artillery and supported by reserve, 
but the angel in the pillar of fire flashed the watchword along our 
battle fine, 

" Strike — for your altars and your fires; 
Strike — for the green graves of your sires; 
God — and your native land," 

and ere that sun had set veteran columns melted away, batteries 
were taken, congressmen captured, flying horsemen and panic- 
stricken battalions, and imbecile generals, and terrified women 
" fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, even 
the camp as it was, and they fled unto Jordan ; and lo, all the way 
was full of garments and vessels which the Syrians had cast away 
in their haste." "• Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in 
power ; thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy." 
" They said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil : 
my lust shall be satisfied on them ; I will draw my sword, my hand 
shall destroy them. Thou didst bloAV with thy wind, the sea 
covered them ; they sank as lead in the mighty A^'aters." 

The ingenuity of the North cannot find a pretext for these disas- 
ters. What power overawed a formidable fleet that lay six miles 
from Fort Sumter during the engagement? and precipitately 
threw back the vain-boasting columns of Butler ? and struck with 
causeless panic the steel-clad legions that fled from Manassas? 
There is but one cause. Terror seized the enemy in each instance ; 
for " the Lord looked through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and 
troubled the host." 

Need we further proof of God's providence ? that our cause is 
just ? that the South shall triumph ? I see through the gloom of 
war a nation springing into being, disinthralled, and equipped with 
Christianity. I see that nation, with its sinewy arm, moving the 
globe, and with eveVy beat of its heart sending out tides of com- 
merce, like rivers of life, to bear on their bosoms the hopes and 
fortunes of humanity. The triumphs of Christianity rest, this very 
hour, on slavery ; and slavery depends on the triumph of the South. 



13 

The hand of God has severed tliis nation to perpetuate this institu- 
tion, and is inflicting judicial punishment on a people who have 
attempted to violate his decree: "Ham shall be a bondsman." 
The war is the servant of slavery. As the atmosphere may be- 
come so loaded with pestilence that nothing but lightning can 
disinfect it, so the sword seems necessary to draw off the bloated 
lust of the North, restore political vigor, and impart a serener 
aspect to her policy. 

When the South shall be left to move, unmolested, in the cycle 
fixed by the finger of God, what part the children of Ham will play 
in that splendid panorama of the world's future history seems dimly 
shadowed forth by prophecy and providence. If Shem gave the 
Savioiu', and Japheth established his kingdom, it is left for Ham to 
usher in the millenium. Incapable of self-preservation, his produc- 
tive labor can be brought out only under the guidance of a superior 
race. Yet it is so identified with the triumphs of the Church, that 
the daughter of Africa is the "beloved" of the Spouse. "Jaw 
blacky but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of 
Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because lam 
blacky because the sun hath looked upon me ; my mother's children 
were angry with me ; they made me the keeper of the vineyards ; hut 
mine own vineyard have I not kept.''"' Do men of higher pretensions 
scorn an agent so humble ? " God has chosen the weak things of 
the world to confound the mighty ; and base things of the world, 
and things which are despised, hath God chosen ; yea, and things 
which are not to bring to nought things that are, — that no flesh 
should glory in his presence." 

The hand of God is collecting agents to dig, and polish, and set 
" precious stones " in that glorious wall which shall crown the city 
of the great King. Ham shall extract them from the soil, Japheth 
carry them in ships, and Shem set them in the " twelve founda- 
tions." If to-day war seems to check the missions of these great 
tribes of man, yet they have brought humanity to a point in its 
ascent where it may await the bursting of storm and the convulsion 
of earth ; thence, by a more vigorous reunion of energies, rise 



14 

higher and yet higher beyond the trials and transformations of war, 
until it reaches the summit, glorious in serenity and eternal in 
splendor. 

The South may pause for a moment on her mission, but the 
war-cloud that overhangs her sky casts protentous shadows across 
the globe. Amid the gloom events thicken around her whole ho- 
rizon, giving promise that the " Sun of Righteousness is arising 
Avith healing in his wings." We stand at a crisis in history. Civ- 
ilization and Christianity are mustering all their forces for a tre- 
mendous conflict. The " seventh seal " is about to be broken, and 
the " seventh trumpet " is about to sound. Students of the Apoca- 
lypse remark that the course of predicted events at first move 
slowly, as one after one, six of the seven seals are opened, but 
that on the opening of the seventh the process is accelerated, mak- 
ing the seventh period as fertile in events as the foregoing six 
together ; that the sounding of the seventh trumpet condenses in- 
cidents in a period equal to the sounding of the six previous ones. 
Slowly has the world evolved its history, but this century is accu- 
mulating and concentering agents. Agriculture and machinery, 
discovery and conquest, science and literature, are revolving 
around the Cross. With a heart beating with hope, the Christian 
seer strains his eye through the misty future to catch the first 
glowing outlines of the kingdom of Christ. Auspicious dawn ! 
rise in effulgent splendor over a globe enveloped in the smoke of 
battle ; kiss the tear from the eye of humanity, melt its heart into 
love, and unite the labor of its million hands in erecting the Cross 
over a ruined world. Then shall weapons of war be transformed 
into implements of husbandry, the clanking of the captive's chain 
into songs of liberty, and dungeons of criminals into the sanctuary 
of saints. 

" All crime shall cease and ancient fraud shall fail, 
Returning justice lift aloft her scale, 
Peace o'er the world her oHve wand extend, 
And white-robed innocence from heaven descend. 
No more the North against the South shall rise, 
And ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes; 



16 

The useless lances into scythes shall bend, 

And the broad falchion in a plow-share end; 

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, 

And boys in flowery bands the tigers lead; 

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, 

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet." 

All glorious day ! dawn on these realms of woe and sin. 
Blessed mediator, bid the angry surges of the nation " be still ; " 
bid Boston and Charleston exchange shouts of peace ; bid the 
Andes nod to the Alps, and the hoarse waves of the Atlantic chant 
wooing praises to the Pacific, till Earth, with her girdle of song 
and her wings of light, soar singing and shining forever in her 
happy orbit around the throne of eternal Love. 

Christian patriots, ye for whom the heroes of Manassas bled, the 
Congress of the Confederates States invokes you this day to offer 
praise to the most High, not that your enemies have been slain, 
God forbid, but that His glory has been vindicated, and the besom 
of destruction, that threatened to overthrow the turrets of Zion 
and the bulwarks of our liberty, has been driven back to its bound- 
ary. Praise Him, not wath idle taunts and inflated boasting, but 
with prayers that assauge the agony of the dying, and wdth hands 
of mercy that bind the wounds of the bleeding. Praise Him, that 
His cloudy pillow of providence defended so many of your sons 
amid tempests of blood and iron hail. Praise Him, that our Josh- 
ua and our Moses, he who led the host to battle, and he who con- 
trols the councils of the nation, were the objects of His tender care. 
Praise Him for your harvests ; praise Him for your government ; 
praise Him for your triumphs ; " praise Him with the sound of the 
trumpet " in the camp ; " praise Him with the psaltery and harp " 
in the temple ; " praise Him with the timbrel and dance " in your 
dwellings ; " praise Him mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and 
all cedars, both young men and maidens, old men and little chil- 
dren. Praise ye the Lord." Amen. 



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